Rinpoche Rising

Legend has it that this great 8th century Buddhist patriarch was a
reincarnation of the Buddha himself, and is still venerated as the
second Buddha.

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Bandeep Singh

June 23, 2016

ISSUE DATE: July 4, 2016

UPDATED: June 24, 2016 13:38 IST

The fiery eyes of Guru Rinpoche rise above the heads of the Lamas of Paro Dzong as the seven-storey-high Thangka of Bhutan's principal deity is unfurled to mark his auspicious birth anniversary.

On an overcast morning in Paro, a quiet town in western Bhutan, a group of 40 monks lines up against the cliff-like facade of the Paro Dzong, part monastery, part fortress. On their shoulders, they hold a serpentine roll of fabric wrapped in a large saffron sheet. On cue from the head lama, the pulleys on the top of the Dzong start heaving to unfold a 110-foot thondrol-a gigantic applique-work thangka of an awe-inspiring deity, Guru Padmasambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche. It is June 15, 2016, a day which falls but once in 60 years, on the exact horoscopic alignment of the lunar calendars of the years and the months to mark the exact planetary alignment of the birth anniversary of Padmasambhava. Legend has it that this great 8th century Buddhist patriarch was a reincarnation of the Buddha himself, and is still venerated as the second Buddha.

PEACEFUL WARRIORS: Padmasambhava's legendary prowess as an archer has inspired many Bhutanese to take up archery, now the country's national sport. Every afternoon, roads and fields can be seen lined with young men armed with compound carbon fibre bows, shooting at wooden targets about 200 metres away.

Educated in the mystic practices of Vajrayana tantra, Padmasambhava is said to have brought Tantric Buddhism to Tibet by establishing the first Buddhist monastery in the trans-Himalayan plateau at Samye. As such, he is also held to be a founder of the Nyingmapa sect, the oldest of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Padmasambhava arrived in the Paro Valley in Bhutan in the 8th century and brokered peace between Sendha, the king of Bumthang Valley, and a neighbouring Indian king, Nauche, who ruled the piedmontaine Dooars. He is also said to have prophesied the founding of the kingdom of Bhutan by the legendary king Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal in the 17th century. To mark the auspicious occasion, a conference on various aspects of Padmasambhava's life and teachings was organised for the first time in Bhutan by the Centre for Escalation of Peace (CEP), an Indian think-tank working in education in South Asian countries, and the Centre for Bhutan Studies.

TRADITION AT EASE WITH MODERNITY: Young women dressed in the traditional Kira (Bhutanese national attire for women) check their cellphones while waiting for Guru Padmasambhava's birth anniversary ceremony to begin at the Paro Dzong.